Sophisticated design software such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Quark, Corel, and other third party systems are often used for yearbook design. Typically, access to such sophisticated software may require a user to purchase the software, install it locally, and purchase associated licenses. In many cases, users may be students or yearbook staff at a school, such as a high school. Maintaining updated software and licenses may be especially difficult for schools because of the time and cost involved. Schools may also be required to purchase multiple licenses in many cases so that the software may be available on multiple machines. In addition to the software used to design yearbooks, sufficient hardware is typically required as well. Hardware sufficient to support and store the design software and yearbook design files may require additional time and cost, which may be especially difficult for a school to expend. Both hardware and software may also require troubleshooting and maintenance, requiring further time and cost and placing additional demands on a school's existing information technology resources.
As may be appreciated, depending on financial and information technology resources, which vary drastically from school to school, some schools may not have sufficient resources to implement, maintain, and troubleshoot sophisticated design software or may simply elect not to use this approach to avoid the hassles.
Thus there exists a need in the art for a yearbook design and publishing system that avoids at least some of the time and expense of acquiring, maintaining, and supporting software and hardware typically needed for such systems.